Center speaker matching question

coolsax

How well do you all think a Polk Audio RM 7 or 8 would match with the Monitor 30's or 40's? I've "finished" (for now) the game room home theater with the system listed below but I'd like to do something about our downstairs family room.

We currently have a Panasonic HTiB for sound and while it has served well for its intention, now that I know how good separate speakers sound, I want to upgrade it as well. We have a 42" samsung plasma on a TV stand and I don't want to mount it on the wall, so I have to have a center that is smaller than the CS1 or 2's or it will cover the IR sensor. It won't be surround sound as the wife doesn't want me running wires all over the family room so I'll just have a 3.1 system, and I'd like to keep to bookshelf sized speakers as well.

MrGlobe

well i have a Polk CSM that i was very happy with. I used it as a center for a fewq months with good results. Obviously there was a large diference when I began using a CS2, but the CSM matched great with the Monitor 40s I was using as mains at the time. The CSM is also much smaller than the CS2. I would definitely recommend the Monitor 40/CSM combo for a 3.1 system. The only thing I ever noticed was missing from the system was the low end, and if you were using a powered sub that wouldn't be a problem.

coolsax

it still has a height of over 6 inches however.. i'm more thinking of something in the 2-4 inch height range.. hence the RM7 or 8

tell you what though, after reading the is Timbre matching overated thread from a few years back.. maybe i don't need to worry as much as I thought... though anyone elses thoughts on this are definitely welcome.

MrGlobe

I know what you mean about the timbre matching. For a long time all my systems were cobbled together from garage sales and the like. I've had JBL titanium tweet centers matched with mylar dome tweet mains, paper cone woofers matched with poly-whatever woofers, and from my experience it really does help to have the speakers match. Don't get me wrong, all my systems sounded great to me at the time, and I was very happy.... until I heard something that matched, and until I heard dialogue transfer from on speaker to another seamlessly. I'm sure you know what I mean with your polk system.

When I play around with old speakers, and try different ones in different setups it becomes apparent that matching speakers are superior.

With that in mind, all my hodge podge systems cost only a fraction of what my timbre matched system cost.

Maybe if it's just the rest of the family watching a movie it won't be a problem? I know that if it was me however, I would spend most of the movie picking apart the differences between the speakers.

coolsax

yeah.. i'm sure it would better getting a matching one but unfortunately there are size constraints.. I'd like to match. hence my question on wehther the RMs would come close to matching the 40's however.. that particular set up will likely be only used for occasional 2 channel and Mostly TV watching.. any major home theater listening and watching will go to my setup in the game room, so if I have to, I think i could live w/ a non matching center.